Corel Painter™ IX

Painter IX: Awake the artist in you.

Urban legend has it that the computer can do everything and all the user has to do is "click" and he becomes the master. Well, for most users that's still a legend. While picture processing has become incredibly powerful with many filters and algorithms, creativity and individuality are still up to the human who is using it. This couldn't apply to anything better than art. While computer art (CG) is strong and better every year, it's the natural media that is hard to produce. Think of an oil painting and try to reproduce that in Photoshop or Photopaint. Good luck finding your individual style with the relatively inflexible filters! Besides, it's simply not the same to "draw" a picture and then post-process it to the "natural" look.


IN A NUTSHELL

Creativity and best simulation of natural media are the corner stones for Painter's existence. Even when compared to Photoshop and the likes, Painter IX is the painting software to have when looking for the best natural simulation. Afterall, it allows to paint with water colors in real time and get the most interactive experience using changing and interacting colors (be it water, oil or paint brushes).

The correct simulation of paint flow, interaction and even the fade effect due to a finite amount of paint in a brush is vital for artists to actually use the computer as an outlet for more traditional techniques without the expense of related different paint utensiles (or the limited ability to make major changes). In fact, it even enables artists that never owned a single brush to dabble without causing any damage.

Painter IX is not brand-new anymore, but due to its unique position (without any serious competition) always worth a recommendation. It does well for digital painters and even less talented artists -- like myself -- are enabled to turn a picture into a painting. Take any photo you like and with some practice you will be able to turn into a respectable oil painting or water color. However, it takes a lot more to reach the perfection seen in the Painter online galery. (www.corel.com/painterix)

With all the power of Painter IX, one problem still remains. While enabling artistic talents with extremely powerful yet intuitive tools, it still doesn't doesn't help to fill in for lack of talent, creativity, or sometimes even just time. In those cases it's best to resort back to the many plug-ins or filters that are available for all significant photo editors (Photopaint, Photoshop etc.). Results will not win you any awards (in regard to paintings), but it can get you really close.


DETAILS

Manual: [****-] There was no printed manual of any sort in my box and that seemed to be reason for concern at first. However, since I downloaded the demo anyway and played with it before buying, it wasn't too much of a risk. The retail package even comes with 2 discs with "Linda" videos that get you started quickly. Corel also offers on online video tutorial. Overall I feel this is a better alternative to a printed manual (though not as easily accessible). The videos are easy to understand, though it's a whole different thing to learn the interface, than learning how to be creative with it.

Interface: [****-] Natural media's best representation in a computer looks a little antiquated yet unorthodox. Once you get behind the slightly cryptic setup for paper type etc. (4 buttons in the tool bar), the real power comes from the "endless" combination of painting modes. That's relatively intuitive and easy to figure out, but hard to master as it's best for each effect to be tried out. The color palette is great and the mixer amazing. (Allows to mix a color from other just like a painter would.) Grab yourself a nice big monitor and off you are. With the focus on the actual painting, the interface steps in the background and excels in not getting into the way.

Functionality: [*****] It's a natural media paint program and offers a mind-numbing variety of 34 techniques and a big collection of variation within each of those. It can be overwhelming at first to find 24 different types of charcoal (hardness, structure etc.) or no less than 25 different erasers and 47 different oil brushes. Combine that with different nozzle setting and paper types and you get a sheer infinite amount of possibilities. Painter IX is relatively weak in illustration tools to create geometry like splines, circles and stars -- but that comes with the territory. This is compensated by a good layer management, despite the limitation to a single mixing effect per layer.

Tracing: [****-] Vital for both cloning and making movies, the onion skin implementation is very transparent though some controls really belong back to the late 1990s rather than 2006. Nevertheless, beyond that it's powerful and easy to use. Simply open a picture and "quick clone" a copy which then will be turned into a painting while having the "original" shine through. (This so-called Tracing Paper can be quickly turned on and off to simplify the work process.) Movies are slightly less user-friendly. It's easy to create a sequence of pictures. Only the preceeding frame can shine through while working on the next. This limited tracing makes dynamic judgments like acceleration relatively hard. (To work around this, create the outline in another program and use that movie as a template for your work in Painter IX.

Plug it in: [****-] Generally compatible to plug-ins that use the Photoshop conventions, the possibilities to extend Painter's automated processing via filters is virtually unlimited. However, given the focus on natural media and relatively limited masking it's hard to see Painter making the best use of such plug-ins.

Hardware: [****-] Despite extensive simulation of natural media, Painter IX is fast on even relatively average hardware. I am now running an Athlon X2 processor and Radeon x1800 graphics board and a total of 2 GByte RAM. Painter IX is virtually instant and even the very complex Watercolor simulation is typically done in less than 2 seconds (after finishing the stroke). It's actually even fun to watch the paint flow and dry.

Tablet support: [*****] Natural media simulation wouldn't be worth anything without a natural input device. A tablet (i.e. Wacom) is often the best choice. Unlike picture processing programs, most functions are not usable via mouse. Painter IX does very well in adapting to pen pressure, speed and tilt angle (for some techniques). Painter IX can even adapt to your style by teaching it your "quirks" (velocity and pressure) in a preference called brush tracking. In its entirety, this might as well be the best support for an input device like Wacom's tablets.

Integration: [***--] Despite being a Corel product (now), Painter is still relatively isolated. Interaction between PhotoPaint and competitor Photoshop is limited to the import and export of the respective file format. That's not necessarily bad, but it interrupts the work flow a little bit as Painter IX would be rarely the only program you work in.

© 2006, theuerkorn


UPDATES

[9.Mar.2005] - The newly released update with the rather cryptic name "IX.5" (9.5) is a free download for IX owners and requires the 9.1 update to be installed. Further, in my case a reset was necessary since switching paint media caused IX.5 to crash. To do so hold down the Shift key when starting Painter IX.5 and this problem was resolved. Check out the Corel website for the improvements IX.5 brings.

New features of the Painter IX.5 update include: photo painting palettes (underpainting, auto-painting, and restoration), Eraser tool (in toolbox), Rubber Stamp tool, Cloner tool in the toolbox, Corel Paint Shop Pro X support, Corel Photo Album support, Apple iPhoto support when running Corel Painter IX.5 on Intel-based Macs with Rosetta, extended support for Wacom pen tablets (Intuos3, Cintiq 21UX), 10 new brushes (specifically for Wacom 6D Art Pen), and dual monitor support on Windows.

[21.Aug.2006] - Out of the blue, Painter IX.5 stopped working with the error message: "This copy of painter has been damaged or illegally modified. Please reinstall from your original disks". This was surprising, and Corel provided the usual support - none. After the typical fixes like reinstalling the software and manually deleting all registry entries related to Corel Painter, the suggested solutions ran thin. The solution in this case was to search for and delete all registry entries called "Protexis". But careful when editing the Registry, the wrong move may wreak havoc on your computer.

[22.Aug.2006] - Corel's official solution to the "This copy of painter has been damaged or illegally modified. Please reinstall from your original disks" seems a little extreme and since Painter is now working I sure did not try it out. But for completeness here it is ...
1. Click "Create a new account" in the "Pick a task" list box.
2. Type the name that you want to use for the account, and then click Next.
3. Select the desired account type, and then click Create Account.